The challenge of increasing Bible literacy

The Bible is the bestselling book of all time. A typical American household has multiple copies of this collection of writings. The Bible writings are considered holy by a large segment of the owners. Few people have read the entire collection and dwell on a few selected passages on which to base their religious understandings. With those who read the Bible, few study it.

Before the inventing of the printing press in the sixteenth century only a very few people read the Bible. Masses of people were told a version of the Bible contents by a few literate priests and monks controlled by bishops and a pope hidden away in the Vatican in Italy.

The Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther happened at just the right time. The Protestant Reformation could not have happened without the printing press, and without the printing press the masses of people of the western world would have continued in illiterate ignorance of the contents of the Bible collection.

I grew up in the era of a blossoming of critical study of the Bible material. Critical studies have long been accepted as important to interpretation and understanding of all kinds of writing. Critical studies ask question like “who was the author?”, “when was it written?’”, “where was it written?”, “why was it written?”, “for whom was it written”, etc. Critical studies ask questions about languages, translations and transmissions. For many Christians these questions were not to be asked about the Bible writings. To them the Bible writings were holy and somehow directly from God. The Biblical writings were timeless and the context of their origins was of little or no importance.

But critical studies are unrelenting. Inquiring minds continue asking questions. The Bible has not escaped. To illustrate the impact, I have chosen to use the Gospel of Mark, the second of the four gospels that start the New Testament narratives.

For multiple reasons, New Testament scholars have concluded that the author of the Mark narrative is unknown. It was written 30-40 years after the death of Jesus, probably in the Jerusalem area. Mark was written in Greek. Jesus native tongue was Aramaic. Mark predates the gospels of Matthew and Luke by one to two generations. The authors of the Matthew and Luke gospels had the manuscript of Mark before them when they wrote their gospels. The authors of Matthew and Luke copied Mark at times word for word. However, they made major additions to the Mark narrative to meet their own literary goals. For the person interested in the Jesus of history, his/her starting point must be Mark.

Matthew and Luke wrote extensive descriptions of the virgin birth of Jesus. These two narratives are for most scholars the purest of fiction. The gospel of Mark has no virgin birth narrative and makes no mention of the historical Jesus before his baptism by John the Baptizer. Another observation worthy of note is that Paul, the earliest writer of New Testament material, talks extensively about the divinity of Christ, but makes no mention of a virgin birth.

The resurrection and ascension narratives raise the same kind of questions. Mark’s description of the resurrection is very short. The earliest Greek manuscripts end the Mark narrative at the end of Mark 16:4. In later manuscripts an awkward addition of 22 verses is made. The story was expanded, but not by the original author. The authors of the Matthew and Luke gospels used words and phrases from Mark, but add long narratives about Jesus’ resurrection and his appearances to his disciples and other devout followers.

With these critical observations about the birth and the resurrection of Jesus, many devout Christians become defensive and call into question the validity of critical scholarship. Where does all of this lead? There are many other illustrations. The Mark dilemma is only one illustration.

Expanded challenges are coming to the Biblical writings. It all began at the University of California Santa Barbara. A full blown department of religious studies was established in the 60s. This movement has spread and most major state universities have followed the lead of UCSB. While these religious studies departments are critically studying religions other than Christianity, they have become the gathering point for today’s finest Biblical scholars. This move of top scholars from church related seminaries to secular state universities is enormous. Tens of thousands of serious college students are now receiving their training in Bible in the setting of secular universities where there is no commitment to creeds, churches, denominations or particular theological understandings.

We are in the midst of a revolution in Biblical studies that is as significant as the invention of the printing press. Today serious study of the Bible for the masses has moved away from churches to secular universities.

Unfortunately, ministers, who have been exposed to critical studies of the Bible in more progressive seminaries, have not shared in any systematic way what they learned in graduate school. The typical person in the pew has been left in the dark about modern Biblical studies. Our college age youth are now studying in state universities what they should have been told in their hometown church.

For Christian churches and individuals to be spiritually healthy, they need education programs that take them beyond the blind recitation of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.